Winter is always treacherous on Lake Superior. The 1913 storm recounted in this book still stands as the deadliest storm in Great Lakes history. Called the "white hurricane," it roared for three days. … read more

This bit of news from the Duluth News Tribune on February 10, 1898 sure was a relief to read. We're headed up to Ely over the holidays and would have hated to come across Mr. Cameron's remains. … read more

Heavy rains pummeled the western Lake Superior area earlier this month. Up to six inches of rain fell in a band just south of Superior, Wisconsin...the headwaters of the Nemadji River. The rising river tore at the clay banks and carried everything it grabbed down to Lake Superior. It created not only a plume of red clay into the lake but a veritable parade of tree trunks, some more alive than others.
While the new horizontal forest is thickest down toward the end of Minnesota Point, there was still a lot of big wood on our own beach. My crafty neighbor … read more

For every 100 people who dream of leaving the big city (or the big suburbs) behind and moving to the North Shore, one or two people actually do it. That ratio has brought enough people to populate the North Shore with quite a cast of characters who have chosen to make this rough land their home.In A View of the Lake, Beryl Singleton Bissell chronicles the leap of faith she and her husband Bill took in 1999 when they landed in quiet Schroeder, Minnesota, surprised owners of a run-down home they bought only for the view of Lake Superior.Beryl and … read more

The North East Minnesota Books Award winners were announced last week, and the winner for fiction is....the North Shore and Lake Superior!! Actually, it was the debut novel of Peter Geye, Safe from the Sea. Ostensibly the story of reconciliation between father and son, the real star of the book is ominous Lake Superior and the colorful communities and people that cling to the lake's edges.
This is a short novel sprinkled with cultural references familiar to anyone who's spent some time in Duluth and on the North Shore. The names have been changed, but you can spend time at the Anchor … read more

In my post yesterday, I neglected to mention Indian Point campground (or "campgrounds," as the sign at the entrance reads). The Western Waterfront Trail curves around Indian Point, and the campground is very visible.Indian Point has a lot of Duluth history to it. It was the equivalent of today's Bayfront Park, with picnics and musical performances. However, this one historical reference made my skin crawl a bit: "A distinctive feature of this camp site is its bathing beach on upper St. Louis bay where autoists, dusty from the day's travel, may indulge in a refreshing dip."(Duluth News-Tribune, May 22, 1921)Since the … read more

In a ceremony held today at the Minnesota-Ontario border at the Pigeon River, Minnesota and Ontario officials formally signed off on the historic "Real North Shore" treaty, which designates the Ontario shore of Lake Superior as "The North Shore" and the Minnesota shore as "The Northwest Shore."Officials cited the geographic reality that has been ignored for a long time. The Minnesota shore of Lake Superior really is on the northwest side of the lake. "This historic moment will finally clear up centuries of confusion," said David Thompson, Jr. "Minnesotans never knew if they went north or east to Grand Marais. … read more

The world needs more ski jokes; here's my attempt to provide something new:The top ten reasons ski trails are measured in meters and kilometers, not feet and miles 1. When the woods are lovely, dark and deep, skiers would rather not have miles to go before they sleep2. Skiers’ feet are stinky3. C’mon, would you rather ski 30 miles or 30K?4. Three words: One World Government 5. “5 K” sounds way cooler than “3.2 M”6. That’s how they measure distance in Finland and Norway...and all the rest of the industrialized world7. Chicks dig “clicks”8. Gives the Italian, Swedish and Norwegian … read more